I spent a lot of time thinking about this month’s IMBB, hosted by Cathy over at my little kitchen. Typically when I eat beans, they are of them plain or refried with hot dogs variety. It wasn’t until I reached into my fridge, looking for a snack, and pulled out some hummus that it hit me: chickpeas.
My first thought was to make hummus. I figured that with a theme like Beans, other people might be making hummus, too. I opted for falafel instead – besides, I already had pitas.
I love falafel, but they’re not the healthiest things. The ingredients are super healthy, but they’re traditionally fried. This makes them nice and crispy, but I wanted something less greasy so I decided to oven “fry” mine. You might also notice that they’re a bit greenish, which is a result of using fresh parsley and cilantro in the recipe rather then dried. I won’t discriminate against falafels of different colors as long as they all taste good.
This recipe originated on Food 911 and made about 24 golf-ball sized falafel patties. I served them on pita bread with cucumbers, tomato, lettuce and a combination of hummus, tahini and sweet chili sauce. They froze really well and heated up in the microwave in just a minute. I would definately make them again in a heartbeat.
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In this month’s issue of EatingWell – which is, by the way, a wonderful foodie magazine to check out – there was an article on mangos. Gorgeous, versatile, tasty and in season. The article was accompanied by several recipes offering suggestions on how to showcase this fruit in various dishes. One recipe in particular caught my eye: Chai Spiced Bread Pudding with Mango.
I’ve been thinking about making this since I first saw the recipe and so I was delighted to find my mango ripe this morning. Chai spices are delicious and the mango offers a smooth, cooling taste to counter their spiciness. Unfortunately, morning is not a great time for dessert. Let me qualify that statement: I’m all for eating leftover dessert in the morning, but I just can’t justify cooking a dessert before 8am with the intention to consume it for breakfast.
So what could I do? I made oatmeal.
And put chai spices into it.
And topped it with mango.
And it was great.
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Tonight I baked this fabulous Broccoli and Cornmeal Upside Down cake from Clotilde to serve with some leftover bbq ribs. It was really delicious, with a very satisfying crisp crunch to the cornbread. I would make it again in a heartbeat – tasty, easy and oh-so-photogenic.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. But that is a gross exaggeration.
In the picture above, you can see two slices of angel food cake and a lovely dollop of homemade lemon curd. The slices are from different recipes for cake. One cake, I made with egg whites and the other I used meringue powder. Why bake two cakes, you ask?
I couldn’t see making an entire tube angel food cake, so I halved the traditional recipe and baked it in a loaf pan. The problem was that the pan I grabbed was an insulated loaf pan. Big mistake. The cake needed about 25% more time in the oven than a non-insulated pan would’ve required and the cake was still somewhat underdone. It tasted ok, but you can tell an angel food cake has too much moisture if it collapses a bit when you’re cooling it. And, yes, I was cooling it upside down!
I had already made the lemon curd (recipe follows) and started to worry that the cake wouldn’t be a suitable accompaniment for it. I didn’t have enough eggs to make another cake, but I did have meringue powder. I’ve never used meringue powder to make an angelfood cake before, but it turned out very well. The biggest difference between it an a typical angel food cake is that it didn’t rise as much – the top of the loaf was much flatter. My tasters prefered the meringue powder cake to the egg one, but I know it already had the advantage because it wasn’t underdone.
The lemon curd, however, was problem free and delicious.
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This morning I made brunch for my parents using the waffle iron my mother got for Christmas. I believe their old waffle iron was at least ten years old. It worked, but had a variety of problems including the lack of an indicator light of any sort. It was difficult to tell how long it needed to heat up and when the waffle was finished cooking. I have vivid memories of waffle-making attempts when I was in school: opening the iron too soon, resulting in half the waffle stuck to the top or the iron and half to the bottom.
I used an approximation of the America’s Test Kitchen recipe for Buttermilk Waffles. I was originially going to make the waffles from my Fannie Farmer cookbook, but decided to make the switch after finding some buttermilk in the fridge. I say approximation because the ATK recipe called for 1 tablespoon of cornmeal to give the waffles a bit of extra crunch, but I cut it to 1 teaspoon because my mother isn’t a fan of cornmeal and I was worried about the waffles taking on its flavor. I also cut the butter slightly. The waffles turned out very well. ATK states that the best waffles will result from a thick batter (the Fannie Farmer recipe is thick as well), but I think I might try a thinner batter next time just to see how the waffles turn out as a point of comparison.
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